June 12, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



945 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 



The May number of the Botanical Gazette 

 contains a paper by Dr. A. A. Lawson, of 

 Leland Stanford University, on ' The Relation- 

 ship of the Nuclear Membrane to the Proto- 

 plast,' in which he holds that the typical 

 nucleus of the higher plants is a water cavity, 

 structurally similar to the vacuole, the chro- 

 matin being the only permanent constituent, 

 while the nuclear membrane originates by the 

 cytoplasm coming in contact with the 

 karyolymph, just as the tonoplast is formed 

 by the cytoplasm coming in contact with the 

 cell sap. Dr. B. M. Davis concludes his paper 

 on ' Oogenesis in Saprolegniaf with an ex- 

 tended theoretical discussion of the homologies, 

 origin and evolution of the coenogamete, the 

 occurrence of coenogametes among the As- 

 comycetes, the phylogeny of Phycomycetes and 

 Ascomycetes, and the nucleus of Phycomycetes 

 in ontogeny. An ecological paper by Mr. 

 J. Y. Bergen, now residing in Naples, dis- 

 cusses the thickets of under shrubs known 

 locally as macchie of the Neapolitan coast 

 regions. Dr. P. L. Stevens, of the Agricul- 

 tural College of North Carolina, describes the 

 occurrence of ' Nutations in Bidens and Other 

 Genera,' quite similar to the well known nuta- 

 tions of the sunflower. Fernow's ' Economics 

 of Forestry,' Boulger's ' Woods ' ; ' Postelsia ' 

 and other current works are reviewed. 



The July number of the American Jour- 

 nal of Mathematics contains the following 

 articles : 



' Isothermal-Conjugate Systems of Lines on 

 Surfaces.' By L. P. Eisenhart. 



' Some Differential Equations connected with 

 Hypersurfaces.' By G. 0. James. 



'On the Forms of Sextic Scrolls of Genus 

 Greater than One.' By Virgil Snyder. 



' Geometry on the Cuspidal Cubic Cone.' By 

 Frederick C. Ferry. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE PROPOSED BIOLOGICAL STATION AT THE 

 TORTUGAS. 



To THE Editor of Science: In the marine 

 biological stations (which carry on, it must 

 be remembered, only a portion of all biolog- 



ical work) two tendencies, opposite at first 

 sight, but really directed toward the same 

 high aims, are discernible. The one tendency 

 is to investigate the phenomena of structure, 

 development and function in the individual; 

 the other is to consider individuals in masses 

 as species, as form-units bearing the imprint 

 of environment, and adapted thereto, and as 

 constituents of faunas. For students of the 

 first sort of marine zoology what is required 

 is one large central laboratory, with an ex- 

 tensive library and the requisite cytological 

 and physiological apparatus, where students 

 of anatomy, embryology and physiology may 

 work together and give mutual aid and stim- 

 ulus. The needs of the workers on the other 

 side of marine zoology call for several labora- 

 tories, widely separated, in diverse environ- 

 ments. These will assist the first sort of 

 laboratory by furnishing particular kinds of 

 material found only in the locality. But their 

 chief work will be to study the fauna, de- 

 termining the laws of geographic distribution 

 of organisms, the variation of species in dif- 

 ferent environments and the interaction of 

 organisms. Such laboratories will, of course, 

 be exclusively for research, and should be 

 equipped with everything requisite for the 

 collection, the study alive and the rearing 

 of organisms. 



While the Woods Holl Laboratory provides 

 a home for the first-mentioned investigations, 

 and will, with increased resources, be able to 

 provide still better for them in the future, 

 the needs of the second sort of biology are 

 still imperfectly met. On the middle Atlantic 

 coast there is a series of laboratories that are 

 of value for this work, as at Harpswell, Woods 

 Holl, Cold Spring Harbor, Beaufort and Ber- 

 muda. And on the Pacific coast we have the 

 Hopkins Laboratory and that of the Univer- 

 sity of California. The pressing needs are 

 now for one or more stations on the Gulf of 

 Mexico and the Caribbean Sea — those vast 

 mediterranean seas our failure to investigate 

 whose fauna remains to-day one of the great 

 reproaches to American zoology. Every zool- 

 ogist who is more than half a zoologist will 

 be glad to see this reproach, removed. 



